


Page Six

by MacBeth13



Series: Twitterpated Series [3]
Category: Castle
Genre: Case Fic, Chaptered, F/M, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-06 10:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacBeth13/pseuds/MacBeth13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The latest article for Page Six drops a bomb on Beckett and Castle's world. Part three in the Twitterpated Trilogy but can also be read as a stand-alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Sequel/companion piece to Egg Dye and Cinnamon Rolls and final story in what I've affectionately dubbed The Twitterpated Trilogy.  
> Spoilers: Knockdown spoilers. Minor mentions from S3's Law & Murder and Slice of Death  
> Disclaimer: Characters are abc's, Marlowe's and Bowman's and anyone else that gets paid to play, I don't so they are not mine, but I did write this story ;)

“Yo, Ryan!” Detective Javier Esposito called out to his partner when he saw him step into the 12th precinct’s bullpen. “Did you see this?!”

“See what?”

“This!” Esposito pointed to the newspaper on his desk open to the Page Six gossip column. There was a collage of coloured photos showing Castle and his daughter Alexis and with them was fellow detective Kate Beckett. In one photo the trio was just leaving a movie theatre and Castle had an arm over each of the ladies’ shoulders. Another photo showed the three of them eating together at a restaurant, the view was from outside the eatery looking in through the large window. The largest photo showed Castle and Beckett, sans Alexis, outside Beckett’s apartment building saying goodnight; the picture was captured at just the right moment to immortalize the couple sharing a kiss. The headline read ‘Life Imitates Fiction - Love For Writer Rick Castle and His Lady Cop.’ The article described their evening out with details and quotes from ‘eyewitnesses’.

“Is this for real?!” Ryan asked Esposito, his cerulean eyes as wide as saucers. Esposito nodded with the same shocked and dumbfounded expression.

“I gotta call Lanie,” Esposito said already bringing up Lanie on his cell. Ryan listened as Esposito asked the Medical Examiner if she’d seen the paper. She obviously hadn’t because he described it in great detail and Lanie’s exclamations were so loud Ryan could hear them.

“So, what are we going to say when Beckett gets here?” Ryan asked when Esposito hung up his phone.

“I don’t even know, dude,” Esposito said with a chuckle and an ear to ear grin.

* * * * *

Kate Beckett was in her car headed to the precinct when she got a call from M.E. Lanie Parish that made her redirect to the lab. She kind of figured it would happen, Lanie calling her out on the photos, but she had been hoping Lanie wouldn’t have seen them until later. Esposito must have called his girlfriend and told her. Beckett knew she was in for a doozy of a day when she was woken up by her father’s phone call about the Page Six article.

When Beckett got to Lanie’s office at the morgue Lanie was still reading the article that she had pulled up on her computer. There were more photos online than there were in the paper.

“Good, you’re here!” Lanie exclaimed in an overly sweet voice. “Sit. Spill,” she commanded in a stern voice.

“Spill what?”

“Girl, I’m’ma smack you! ‘Spill what?’! That’s what,” she pointed to the computer.

“Are you going to believe me, or whatever tale that article made up?” Beckett waved her hand at the computer in annoyance.

“Start talking,” Lanie said dragging a chair over to sit opposite the chair she intended for Beckett.

“Where do you want to start?” Beckett asked with a sigh as she lowered herself onto the chair.

“How about how long this has been going on?”

“It-” she started out angrily then took a cleansing breath and started over calmer, “it hasn’t been going on at all. Last night wasn’t a date, Alexis was with us.”

“Not for this lovely picture,” Lanie pointed to the goodnight kiss photo.

“I- That was- You know you can stop grinning now.”

“Mmm mmm, this is too good! So did you plan this little outing or was it spontaneous?”

“Planned, sort of. Alexis and I won a contest, and dinner and a movie on Castle was the prize.

“What was the contest?”

“An egg dyeing contest,” Beckett said regretting she’d brought it up.

“Egg dyeing contest as in you spent Easter with Castle?”

“Uhh, yeah,” Beckett rubbed her forehead.

“Easter was after you broke up with Josh, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, yes it was, but you already knew that because I told you last week how long it’s been since I broke up with Josh.”

“Uh huh, and did writer-boy know about your split?”

“Not when he invited me over for Easter.”

“But he knows now?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me again why last night didn’t qualify as a date?”

“It wasn’t a date, Lanie! It was just as friends, Alexis was with us!” Beckett said exasperated. Lanie just pointed once again to the snapshot on her computer screen. Beckett looked at the picture that should only be a source of anger but for some reason made her stomach do giddy little flip-flops.

“Uh huh, that’s what I thought,” Lanie said and Beckett realized her expression must have betrayed her. “I want details,” Lanie prodded as she got more comfortable in her chair.

“Okay. Well, we had finally found a Saturday afternoon free yesterday, and Alexis had been asking about it ever since Easter,” Beckett said thinking back to the day before, “so we decided to make a go of it…”

* * * * *

Previous Afternoon

Castle was due to be at her apartment to pick her up any minute and Beckett did one last mirror check. She had decided to wear a pair of curve hugging blue-jeans and a low cut sage green blouse. She put on some heels, added some jewellery and let her hair stay loose. She heard Castle at her door. She told herself her jittery nerves were foolish, grabbed her purse and her sweater and hurried to answer the door.

When she opened the door Castle was poised with his hand raised to knock again. His hand stayed mid-air while he gave her a look over, his eyes appreciated the low-cut top.

“You look nice,” Castle said managing to get his eyes up to meet hers.

“So do you,” she told him sincerely. He was wearing a pair of black slacks and a blue dress shirt that brought out the colour in his eyes. A blazer streamlined the look. Beckett locked the door behind them and tried not to notice Castle looking at her derriere when she turned to do so.

“Shall we?” he offered her his arm and she hesitated a moment before slipping her hand through the crook of his elbow. “Alexis is waiting in the car. She’s really been looking forward to this. Truth to tell, so have I,” Castle said casually and Beckett looked at him to see if he meant it as nonchalantly as he said it. She couldn’t read any more into it because he kept his head and eyes facing forward.

Castle chose to drive one of his more practical vehicles that had back seats but it was still much more expensive and impressive compared to Beckett’s own car. Alexis chattered away easily on the ride to the movie theatre. It had been her decision to watch the movie first then eat supper. She had also chosen the movie they were going to see. Instead of going to a new release she chose a theatre that was playing Star Wars. They always played the Star Wars movies at the beginning of May and, according to both Alexis and Castle, you hadn’t seen Star Wars until you’ve seen it on the big screen.

Castle bought them popcorn and drinks. Beckett was pleasantly surprised when he purchased a box of Junior Mints for her, that he remembered she had a fondness for them. When they took their seats in the theatre Beckett was in the middle of the Alexis-Castle sandwich. It didn’t escape Beckett’s notice when Castle slyly reached his arm around the back of her seat. She could have chastised him, could’ve given him the look he knew all so well that kept him in line, she could have, but she didn’t. When she risked a glance at him he had the faintest of smiles on his face, the kind that bespoke of a silent victory, however small.

When the movie was over and they left the theatre to go back to the car Castle reached his arms out and tucked Beckett on one side and Alexis on the other.

“So, ladies, where to for dinner?”

“I chose the movie so dinner should be your choice, Beckett,” Alexis said leaning forward to look across her father.

“Okay, um, oh I know! There’s this little Italian place not far from here. They have the best white pizza.”

“Sounds good, so long as the name ‘Nick’ is not involved.”

“Definitely not,” Beckett cringed.

“Yeah, sorry,” Castle said regretting bringing up that particular case before eating.

Manoli’s Italian Restaurant was the kind of relaxed atmosphere place that Beckett loved. The food was great and the prices were reasonable. They were seated by a window and they ordered a large white pizza. They talked about Star Wars while they ate and Beckett could keep up with the conversation and join in as well, much to Alexis and Castle’s amazement and joy. They were talking about hidden mistakes or little things most people don’t notice. Castle liked when the Stormtrooper hit his head on the bulkhead door.

“What I love is that they leave in the Carrie SNAFU,” Beckett said.

“Ooh, yeah, I like that one,” Castle laughed.

“Which one?” Alexis asked.

“When Luke is getting out of his fighter at the end, and Leia is running toward him with Han, Luke calls out but instead of saying Leia he says ‘Carrie’ and they never re-dubbed it. I love it,” Beckett said.

“Did he? I never even noticed that before,” Alexis said. “I’m gonna look for that next time." Castle smiled, truly enjoying the moment. Kate Beckett was always a source for surprises. Clearly winning over more of his daughter’s and his own heart with her newest display of geek knowledge. They ended up having a full discussion about lightsabers, theories about the colour of the focusing crystals the different Jedi and Sith knights chose. Beckett really won favoured points when she told them the story behind Mace Windu’s purple lightsaber.

When they were done eating Alexis got a text from a friend from school reminding her about their planned study group for chemistry over Skype. Castle offered to drop her off at the loft first instead of dropping off Beckett first. The loft was closer than Beckett’s place anyway. Alexis apologized profusely but it wasn’t necessary. Alexis hugged Beckett and expressed her wishes that they could do it again sometime. The teen took Beckett’s “we’ll see” reply as a hopeful one then she dashed up the stairs for her online study group.

Not anxious to see the evening end just yet Castle asked if Beckett minded if they switched cars and cruised around for a bit. It was a nice night and not a chance of rain; they took the Ferrari. Castle loved the look Beckett got when the wind rushed through her hair. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, her face up as if she was kissing the sky. He had to remind himself to watch the road. It was almost as if the wind and the speed helped free her spirit a little bit. If he could help Kate Beckett drop away some of the stress of the world from her shoulders for a short time simply by hitting the road for a few miles then that was a simple pleasure he was only too glad to give her. Of course there were other pleasures he would be even more eager to perform for her. Castle shifted in his seat and changed his grip on the steering wheel and willed his mind to go somewhere else other than the path it had just taken.

Beckett looked over at Castle when they stopped at a red light to see him fidgety in his seat, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

“You okay, Castle?”

“Yeah, fine, why?”

“You seem a little preoccupied about something.”

“Oh, you know me, my brain is always running on about something or other,” he said flippantly, not turning to look at her.

“Okay,” she drawled out, not pressing him.

“I was just thinking that-”

“Castle, you’ve got some fans,” Beckett said, head nodding toward a SUV that had pulled up alongside of his car. The vehicle was full of grown women acting like a bunch of teenagers at a Justin Bieber concert.

“Richard Castle, we love you!” they called out in unison. Castle waved at them but he definitely looked uncomfortable. Beckett couldn’t suppress a closed mouth laugh.

“Hey, Ricky, if the date with her isn’t going well feel free to meet up with us at the Vicki’s Bar!” one brave bottle-blonde said. Beckett gave the woman a glare that should have incinerated her. “Oh, sorry, are you like, really his girlfriend?”

Castle wanted to hear what Beckett’s response would be but didn’t get a chance to find out. One of the other women in the SUV, helped by the height advantage of the SUV over the Ferrari, spotted Beckett’s badge she had clipped to her purse.

“Oh. My. God! You’re Nikki Heat! Holy Crap!”

“Nikki is a character,” Castle forcefully informed them with the line Beckett usually gave to people when they couldn’t make the distinction. The women continued to gush and comment and take cell pics but Castle revved his engine, anxious for the light to turn green. The woman driving the SUV revved her sad excuse for an engine so Castle revved the Ferrari again. When the light turned green the SUV pulled away fast, probably assuming Castle was going to gun it with his car’s speed. Instead he went slower than usual, letting the SUV get well ahead and taking a turn that would lead them to Beckett’s apartment.

“Smooth, Castle,” Beckett commented on his way of dropping out of the women’s radar.

“Sorry about that,” he said and what surprised Beckett was that he sounded like he really meant it.

“I thought you liked all the female attention?”

“I like it sometimes, when I’m in a situation and atmosphere of my choosing. Out in public, catching me off guard and treating the people that I care about like crap, not so much,” Castle told her.

“Wow, Castle, that’s…honest,” she said for lack of a better adjective, “but I’ve faced worse, you of all people should know that.”

“I do. Still, you didn’t deserve their words or their easy dismissal of you.”

“Thanks,” she said and he looked over and her smile put him back at ease. He looked back to the road and hit the gas on an open straightaway. She tipped her head back again and laughed as she enjoyed the new burst of wind and speed.

When they pulled up to Beckett’s apartment building she was kind of disappointed to have the evening reach its end. It had been nice to spend time with Alexis and Castle and it was fun. How often did Kate Beckett allow herself to have fun? Not often enough, she admitted to herself. Castle turned off the engine and, like a gentleman, walked her to her door. What had been just a light-hearted outing suddenly took on a more serious feel of a date. Would he try to kiss her goodnight? Did she want him to? One look up at him as he looked down at her with half-lidded bedroom eyes made the answer become an enthusiastic 'Hell yes!’

“Tonight was really nice,” he said, the words neutral enough but his voice was whiskey and velvet and made a pleasant shiver run up to her spine.

“Yes, it was,” she said, looking down coyly then back up at him. His eyes darkened to a deep shade of blue that reminded her of a turbulent ocean. Reflexively she licked her lips and his eyes were pulled by the motion, captivated, drawn by the allure.

Rick brought his hand up slowly to caress the side of her neck, rubbing with his thumb where her jaw and ear connected. He used that thumb to gently tip her chin up as he bent to kiss her. Unlike when they had kissed before, there was no life or death situation looming, there was no false pretense as to why they were kissing.

The kiss wasn’t chaste but it wasn’t the maelstrom that the kiss was the night they were distracting the guard. This kiss was languid, slow and cautious, that is, it was until Kate flicked out her tongue in the barest of teases. It was all the encouragement Rick needed and he deepened the kiss, his own tongue mingling with hers. He heard Kate whimper and he heard himself moan. He was about to pull her closer to him when his cell phone went off.

They broke apart from each other, both out of breath and surprised by what had just transpired.

“Sorry,” he murmured as he reached into his back pocket for his phone.

“Who is it?” she asked as he read the text message.

“Alexis. She was asking if I got lost?,” he said with a sheepish smile. She smiled too, biting her bottom lip and blushing attractively.

“I should probably go,” he said reluctantly.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said just as reluctant for him to go.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Castle.”

She watched as he walked to the Ferrari and called Alexis. She heard him tell his daughter that he was on his way home now and that they had gone driving. She watched his car drive away until she could no longer see his taillights.

* * * * *

Lanie was sitting on the edge of her seat when Beckett finished giving her the CliffsNotes version of last night. For once Lanie was rendered uncharacteristically speechless.

“You’re not going to say anything?” prompted.

“I’m trying to think of what to say,” Lanie said, the smile she had showing her sparkling teeth. “You may not have thought it was a date, honey, but it most certainly was.”

“But-”

“Girl, no ‘but’s about it, it was a date. Alexis being there doesn’t negate it. It involved dinner and a movie and shared little intimate moments not to mention a cruise in his hot car and a kiss that made your toes curl.”

“I didn’t say it made my toes curl, you’re ad-libbing,” Beckett said but Lanie just continued to smile which infuriated Beckett more. “It was just a kiss. A kiss that was caught on camera and plastered in the gossip column for the whole of New York to see!”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s more than just New York taking an interest,” Lanie said still wearing her cat-that-ate-the-canary smile, “and they’re all wondering if you two really are the hottest new item.”

In response Beckett made a frustrated noise and bent over to put her head on her knees. She heard Lanie laughing at her expense and so without looking up at her friend she flipped her the bird. It only made Lanie laugh harder.

Lanie’s mirth was interrupted by the ringing of first her own phone then Beckett’s cell phone, a sound pattern they knew only too well. Another body had dropped.  



	2. Chapter 2

The victim was a young woman in her early twenties. An old man walking his dog had happened across her body as his dachshund had sniffed out a spot to do his business in a side alley between two buildings.  
  
“Judging by the clothes and the area I’m guessing she’s a working girl,” Ryan surmised. Beckett nodded her agreement of the assessment as she looked at the crowd behind the yellow tape. Most of the women were streetwalkers. Beckett took a picture of the victim’s face so she could use it as a visual aid when they went to talk to the crowd.  
  
Esposito was still talking to the man with the dog. Lanie was doing her preliminary exam of the body and Castle was over by the wall trying to be inconspicuous. He was wearing his shades and avoiding turning his head to Beckett when she was looking at him.  
  
“G.S.W. to the chest. Looks like a .38 maybe a .45,” Lanie said.  
  
“Let’s look around this rubble,” Beckett said pointing to the trash cluttering the alley, “maybe we’ll find the shell casing.”  
  
“Right,” Ryan said.  
  
Beckett started looking as well and, out of the corner of her eye, she could see Castle making his approach. He waited until they had stepped deeper into the alley before speaking.   
  
“Can we talk?” he asked. She gave him silence as an answer and continued scanning the ground for the casing. “Look, I’m sorry about the article, Kate, but I’m not sorry about last night.” She still said nothing. “Are you going to keep giving me the silent treatment?” he asked exasperatedly as he whipped off his sunglasses.  
  
“That was a private moment, Castle, one that was special to me and it was intruded on by some paparazzo who had nothing better to do than butt in to people’s lives! Our friends, our co-workers, my _father_ saw that article announcing to the world that we’re a couple and I’m not even sure that we are! Hell, I don’t even know what I’m feeling, I was only beginning to figure it out and find out if we could make this work and now I don’t even know,” she said in a tirade, panting in anger.  
  
“I didn’t know the shutterbug was there, I didn’t know he was following us. If I knew he was there I would have gone Jack Nicholson on his ass!”  
  
“Can we just work please?” she pleaded then sighed. “That victim deserves our full attention, her family deserves no less than our best effort in solving her murder. Can we just do that, please?”  
  
“Fine,” Castle huffed, still upset that she was angry about the article.  
  
Ryan turned up the shell casing and bagged it as evidence. Beckett paired herself with Esposito and had Ryan team up with Castle. It was a selfish move but she didn’t have the patience to deal with Castle and the topic of the article presently. Lanie gave them the approximate time of death to be between ten and twelve hours prior. Ryan took Castle to start on one side of the crowd and Beckett and Esposito headed over to start with the group of working girls. On the way over to them Esposito gave Beckett a look.  
  
“So…how was last night?”  
  
“Do you want to switch places with Ryan and be partnered with Castle?” she glared at him.   
  
“No. Sorry. Won’t happen again,” he put on a straight face as they reached the yellow tape and the crowd.  
  
“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” Beckett asked the women kindly. A few of the younger girls got fidgety but the older ones seemed comfortable enough.  
  
“Relax, honey, they’re homicide detectives,” one of the older ones said to a younger girl. “Anything we can do to help,” she said then smiled sweetly at Esposito. He crossed his arms and appeared to be straight-faced but Beckett could see him biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from grinning.  
  
“Do you recognize this woman?” Beckett showed them her cell screen displaying the vic’s picture.  
  
“Yeah, that’s Tanya,” the older woman answered.  
  
“Do you know her last name?” Esposito asked.  
  
“Naw, she’s one of Stefano’s girls.”  
  
“Larson,” the frightened girl said in a quiet voice.  
  
“Sorry?” Beckett asked, not sure she had heard right.  
  
“Tanya’s last name, it’s Larson,” she said, her voice just as meek. Most of the other women were giving her curious looks.  
  
“How’d you find that out, Cherrie?” the older woman asked.  
  
“We worked a couple of parties together, couple of gay guys just wanted hot beards for business parties, y’know, so it gave us time to talk, easy money.”  
  
“You all seem pretty surprised she knew that, why?” Esposito asked.  
  
“Tanya’s one of Stefano’s girls. He don’t let his girls talk to nobody,” another woman, wearing a denim mini-skirt, chimed in.  
  
“Stefano gives his girls a place to stay and all, but he controls everything: when they sleep, what they eat, who they talk to, who they do business with,” this from a girl in a blue, fuzzy sweater.  
  
“When you talked with her did she mention any problems with anyone?” Beckett asked Cherrie.   
  
“No, not really. I mean, she was scared of Stefano, but all his girls are afraid of him.”  
  
“I take it none of you are under Stefano’s…employ?” Esposito tried for tact.  
  
“No, we’re all freelance. I’m a bit of a mother hen but, ah…we all work for ourselves,” the older woman said with a wink.  
  
“Do you know where Stefano and his girls live?” Beckett asked.  
  
“No, he don’t let nobody know where they are,” denim skirt said. Beckett looked to Cherrie but she shook her head.  
  
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Beckett told the group. The older woman pinched Esposito on the ass as he turned around to leave.  
  
“Sorry, couldn’t help myself,” she said unashamedly.   
  
“You know that could be considered assaulting an officer,” Esposito told her.  
  
“Would it help if I said you have the nicest buns I’ve felt in a long time?” she asked, holding her hands up in a hands-off gesture.  
  
“Don’t let it happen again,” Esposito said then walked with Beckett back to the alley. “Can you believe that woman?” he chucked a thumb over his shoulder. Beckett gave him a half-smile.   
  
CSU had finally showed up, after getting stuck in traffic, to work the scene. Beckett told them that they’d found the one shell casing that she was hoping they could pull prints off of.  
  
It turned out that Tanya Larson was an orphan who spent most of her childhood with her grandmother but when the grandmother grew ill Tanya was put into foster care. Then when Tanya was seventeen she ran away from one of the many foster homes she had been transferred to. That was three years ago.  
  
“Talk to her case worker at Social Services,” Beckett told Ryan. “See if Tanya ever mentioned any friends she might have kept contact with, any places she frequented that she might still have gone to.”  
  
“You want to try and find someone who can help us figure out who had a beef with Tanya?” Ryan asked.  
  
“Yeah, that, or lead us to where Tanya lived with Stefano.”  
  
“Right,” he said then left with Castle.  
  
Beckett went with Esposito to the nursing home where Mrs. Larson, Tanya’s grandmother, lived. She was upset upon hearing of her granddaughter’s demise but she had not heard from her in quite a long while. She was a quiet child, but she was always restless. She didn’t really let anyone in or trust them. She never shared where she went when she went out, never let on that she had any serious boyfriends or close friendships. Ryan and Castle got just about as much from the caseworker.  
  
Ballistics matched the shell casing to the .38 calibre bullet Lanie pulled from the body. They found a partial print on the casing but it would take them some time to run it down. They were backed up as it was. For once Castle didn’t express his annoyance that things didn’t get done at the snap-of-fingers pace he would like, but the look was on his face.  
  
It was getting late and Castle called it a night. Beckett, Ryan and Esposito were headed back to the street where Tanya ‘worked’ to see if they could spot Stefano. Being stuck in a car in awkward silence wasn’t desirable to Castle.  
  
When Castle got home Alexis was at the counter doing homework.  
  
“Hey, Dad,” Alexis looked up from her books. “You’re home early.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Everything okay?”  
  
“Yeah…no, I don’t know,” he sighed then took a seat on a chair next to her.  
  
“Beckett?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah, I saw the paper. Everyone at school kept asking me about it.”  
  
“Sorry about that, sweetie.”  
  
“I’m not upset about seeing myself in the paper, Ashley cut them out to scrapbook. It _is_ kind of weird when my teacher is asking me about your love life but…” she shrugged.   
  
“It’s not something you should have to be asked about at school, especially by your teachers. I can talk to them if you want?”  
  
“No, it’ll die down in a little while. It always does.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” he hugged her and she squeezed him back then looked up at him with half her face still pressed to his chest.  
  
“So…Beckett?”  
  
“She’s upset, understandably so, that the photog decided to take pictures of us in a private moment. She paired me up with Ryan today after we had a heated discussion about the article. She didn’t talk to me all day,” he said dejectedly. Alexis pulled away from the hug and studied him for a few beats, he knew he was pouting.  
  
“Did you try talking to her again after she had time to cool off and process everything?”  
  
“No, she said she didn’t want to talk about it. She just wanted to work the case.”  
  
“So that all happened this morning?” she asked opening the freezer.  
  
“Yeah,” he rubbed his face with his hands.  
  
“And you didn’t press the issue after that or try to talk to her at all?” she asked again already knowing the answer but not believing her dad would just let something drop.  
  
“No,” he watched as Alexis set a container of Ben  & Jerry’s on the counter and grabbed two spoons.  
  
“Dad?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Weren’t you the one who told me that the closer people get to Beckett, the more open to vulnerability they make her, the more she pushes them away?”  
  
Castle thought about that for a moment then his pout turned into a bittersweet smile. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he got up and kissed her cheek. “Dessert before supper?” he asked, gesturing to the ice cream.  
  
“It seemed like an ice cream therapy kind of night,” she replied, handing him a spoon. In true Castle family tradition they ate right out of the carton.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning when Beckett arrived at the precinct she looked around the bullpen for Castle. She poured herself a cup of coffee from the break room then returned to her desk and settled in. She looked around the room for him again while waiting for her computer to register her log-in.

“He’s not here,” Esposito said.

“I didn’t ask,” was her curt reply. Anyone else might be offended at her tone but Esposito just smiled because he knew she was looking for Castle and he knew she was too prideful and stubborn to admit it.

“He called and said he had some business to attend to before Paula inflicts some kind of torture on him,” Ryan added.

“Where are we with the print?”

“I called and pestered forensics this morning-” Ryan started.

“You mean sweet-talked,” Esposito interrupted.

“They should be calling soon to let us know if they came up with a match,” Ryan finished, giving Esposito a glare. As if on cue Ryan’s phone rang and he grinned smugly as he answered it.

“What about Stefano, any closer to finding him?” she asked Esposito.

“Without a full name to go on…” he shook his head.

“Add last night’s wasted effort to the list and this guy is more clever than we thought.”

“Pulling all his girls in and staying low sounds pretty guilty to me,” Esposito commented and Beckett nodded.

“Guilty and not as clever as he pretends to be,” Ryan said hanging up his phone. “Print matches one Stefano De Luca.”

“You got an address?”

‘Yup,” he waved his notepad, still wearing his grin.

“Great, let’s see about getting a warrant to search his place for a gun that ballistics can match to the bullet. I’m gonna put out a BOLO for Stefano.”

“Right,” Esposito said and he and Ryan set to work on filling out the form for judge’s approval.

It was almost time for lunch and Beckett had looked up any known associates of Stefano’s, she had assigned Ryan and Esposito to phone records and financials. She had also updated the murder board and they were still waiting on warrant approval. Castle still hadn’t shown up either.

“Beckett!” Karpowski called across the bullpen.

“Yeah?”

“You’ve got a visitor.”

Beckett looked up expecting to see a sheepish Rick Castle waiting to see if she accepted him helping on the case and being at the precinct, pulling Karpowski in to serve a purpose of announcing him as if he didn’t work there with them every day. Beckett was right, it was a Castle looking nervous to be there, just not the Castle she was expecting.

“Alexis?” she queried, beckoning the teen over to her desk. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, well, sort of. I was hoping we could talk,” she looked over at Ryan and Esposito who were pretending not to listen and doing a poor job of it, “in private.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Why don’t we go in the break room,” Beckett suggested. “Don’t you have school today?”

“I have free block before lunch today,” Alexis explained.

“Oh. So what’s on your mind?”

“It’s about dad. Actually it’s about you. You and dad, I guess.”

“This about the article?”

“Not directly. More like the fallout because of it.” Alexis took a deep breath as if steeling herself up to say something she was nervous about saying. “I get that the whole finding yourself in a gossip column is really weird and not easy to deal with and I know that whatever is going on between you and my dad is none of my business-”

“Considering you’re his daughter, it kind of is your business,” Kate interrupted, “sorry,” she apologized for the interruption.

“Anyway, the point is the article isn’t really my dad’s fault. It’s not fair for you to cut him off and blame him for it.” Alexis paused, waiting to see if Beckett would protest the accusation. When she didn’t Alexis went on, “I know you care about my dad and I know he’s completely smitten with you or else he wouldn’t be hurting so much right now.” If Alexis were hoping to apply a guilt trip she was succeeding. “I think we both know it hasn’t just been about the books in a long while for him, and I get that you don’t find it easy to let people in but I think you need to be honest with him about how you feel…or don’t feel, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone have the kind of effect on my dad the way you do.” Alexis finished her tirade leaving Beckett in stunned silence.

“You’re right,” Kate admitted, “on all counts. I know that not talking to him wasn’t fair, I just… this is new territory for me and that article was such an invasion. I know it wasn’t his fault but I just- I needed time to think, to work it out on my own.”

“So do you like my dad like that?” Alexis asked, suddenly much calmer and less frazzled now that she’d spoke her mind.

“Yeah,” Kate tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, “I really do. Do you mind?” she looked to Alexis to gauge her reaction.

“Mind? Are you kidding?! I think it’s great!” Alexis smiled. She hesitated for a second then hugged Kate swiftly. Kate enjoyed the brief comfort the physical affection gave. “So you’re not mad at me?”

“Mad at you? For what?”

“For coming down here and…”

“Giving me the verbal equivalent to the swift kick in the pants I needed? No, I’m not mad.”

Alexis laughed at Beckett’s phrasing. She took a sobering breath then looked at Beckett again with a serious face.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure about the details but you have to trust your dad and I that we’ll work it out.”

“So you’ll talk to him?”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Like today or…?” Alexis pressed and Beckett gave her a look. “I’m pushing it, aren’t I?”

“Just a bit,” Beckett held up her hand making a small space between her thumb and index finger.

“Well, thanks for listening. I should get back to school,” she said. They exited the break room and Ryan and Esposito were watching them.

“Be careful on the way.”

“I will,” Alexis smiled and waved at Ryan and Esposito as she walked away.

“No hits off the BOLO, still waiting on the warrant,” Esposito said as Beckett rounded her desk.

“What, uh- What was that about?” Ryan asked, nodding his head in the direction of the elevator Alexis had left in.

“Never mind that. It’s personal,” she told him looking at the surface of her desk.

“Oh, so it didn’t have anything to do with that Page Six article? ‘Cause that was pretty public,” Ryan said with a teasing grin.

“Do you want to go to lunch before I make you the next subject of the murder board?” she replied with a grin of her own that was teasing with a hint of maliciousness.

“Right. I’m just gonna…” Ryan grabbed his jacket and made for the door. Esposito followed him, snickering at his partner’s back. Beckett smiled and decided to go back into the break room for a fresh cup of coffee.

The warrant came through right before Ryan and Esposito were due to return from lunch. Must have been the last thing the judge approved before his own lunch or the first thing approved upon returning. When Ryan and Esposito returned she had a printed copy of the warrant and they noticed her ’ready-to-go’ look. They also didn’t return alone.

“Look who we found on our way back from lunch,” Ryan said. Castle didn’t say anything, he just handed over her first decent cup of coffee of the day and a small brown paper bag.

“Got the warrant,” she said after taking a drink from the coffee then set the coffee and the brown bag on her desk.

“Warrant for what?” Castle asked as the group made their way to the elevator.

“To search Stefano De Luca’s place. Keep up, Castle,” Beckett said with a hint of a playful smile. Castle looked at her quizzically as he got on the elevator.

“Forensics came up with a match for the partial print that was on the bullet casing,” Ryan said as he hit the button for the ground floor.

“The pimp?”

“Pimp is such a crude a word, Castle,” Esposito told him.

“All right, then what would you prefer I call him?”

“Stefano De Luca,” Ryan suggested. Esposito shook his head in a manner that suggested he had a better title.

“Human Services Entrepreneur,” Esposito said with a smirk.

“Good one, dude,” Ryan said giving Esposito a fist bump.

“I like it,” Castle said with a smile then looked at Beckett and turned serious again. She seemed not to have noticed the conversation. Castle wondered what she was thinking about. He knew he had spent all morning thinking about what Alexis had said to him last night.

Alexis was right, the article had made Beckett’s defensive walls go up and Castle had been too hurt by Beckett’s anger to see it as the defence mechanism that it was. He knew now that he needed to let Beckett work it out on her own, give her the time she needed to get over this speed-bump and hope that they came out the other side of this trial in his favour. He also knew better than to disappear altogether, verbal space and physical space were two completely separate things. He needed to make sure she knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He was just giving her thinking time, ‘brain-space’, he thought of it as…maybe he should coin that phrase, he mused.

Beckett let Ryan and Esposito stick together and Castle rode over to Stefano’s in her car. The ride was an unusually quiet one. Beckett kept running over in her mind all the things Alexis had said. She wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of the article with Castle. She wasn’t sure how to phrase how she felt about him. Right now, certainly, wasn’t the time, she told herself. Maybe she’d have a chance to talk it out with him later on that night.  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is a long chapter because I couldn't decide where to split it and I didn't have the heart to.

They showed up at the end of the block near Stefano’s place, lights off. She grabbed her vest from the trunk, put it on, then double-checked her piece.

“Castle-”

“I know, I know, stay in the car,” Castle cut Beckett’s usual order off. He had just finished putting on his own vest. He sat back in the car and closed his door. “Be careful in there,” he told her. Her answer was a curt nod then she headed toward Stefano’s building with Ryan and Esposito.

When they walked inside the apartment building the tenants that were mingling in the hallways all retreated to their apartments.

“Stefano De Luca!” Esposito called out banging on the door, “NYPD, we have a warrant!” They waited a few beats then Esposito kicked open the door. He entered and went left, Ryan entered and went right, Beckett took the centre position. No one was in the main room. They carefully made their way to the bedrooms. When they went inside the first bedroom they didn’t find Stefano De Luca but they did find half a dozen scared young women.

“He’s not here!” one of them cried, “please don’t shoot us!”

“Where is he? Where did he go?” Beckett demanded.

“He got a text and then he took off just before you got here,” one of the other women said, significantly more calm than the others.

“Any idea where he might have gone?” Ryan asked.

“Tony’s,” the calm one answered and the others tried shushing her.

“Mariette, shut up, he’ll kill us if he finds out we helped them,” a blonde implored.

“No, he won’t, if we catch him, when we catch him, he won’t be coming back,” Esposito said.

“You can’t guarantee that,” a blue-haired woman said.

“Murder is a pretty solid sentence and we’ve got good evidence,” Ryan told them.

“So he did do it, he murdered Tanya ‘cause she left?” Mariette said. None of the detectives answered her but the query was more statement of disbelief than real question anyway.

“Where’s Tony’s place?” Beckett implored.

“On the corner, the brick apartment building,” Mariette told them.

“Do you know what apartment number?” Beckett asked her.

“8C.”

They heard a loud bang that came from outside, then another followed it a scant few heartbeats later.

“Castle!” the three detectives said together in alarm upon realizing the sound was gunfire and Castle was alone in the cruiser parked right in front of Tony’s building.

“Ryan, stay with the girls, call it in, ask for back-up! Esposito, with me!” Beckett ordered, already rushing headlong down the hallways. Her fear for Castle’s safety and her desire to move faster just made the hallways seem to elongate. When they finally exited the building they could see Stefano against the corner of Tony’s building facing Castle in Beckett’s car. Beckett saw Castle move inside the car in his ducked-behind-the-dash position. Stefano took another shot at Castle and shattered the car’s windshield. A half-second later Beckett put a round in Stefano’s shoulder. She covered Esposito while he disarmed Stefano. Esposito kept Stefano pinned to the ground while applying pressure to the man’s shoulder. They could hear the siren’s of the back-up growing louder as they got closer.

“Castle!” Beckett called out as she moved cautiously towards her car, moving along the wall of the brick building. She wanted to dash over to him and throw caution to the wind but she couldn’t. They still didn’t know if Stefano’s buddy Tony was around and if he was armed. A black-and-whiter pulled up behind Ryan and Esposito’s car. Two burly, uniformed cops stepped out using their doors as cover. Another cruiser came down the other side of the street.

“One suspect detained, second might be armed!” Beckett called out to them. “Perp lives in this building. I need cover so I can check on my partner!” The cops nodded, their weapons drawn. Beckett did one last visual sweep of the building she had her back to and all the crevices before darting out toward her car. She heard a shot ring out from above and heard it impact the cement just behind her.

“Castle!” she called out again as she made it up to her car, rounding the front of it so she was on the passenger side. “Castle?!” she gasped seeing him slumped over across the front seats. She opened the door and heard a bullet whiz past her head. “Castle?”

“Oww,” he groaned then coughed as he stirred.

“Stay low. Are you hit?” she asked.

He brought his hand to his chest, “Vest caught it.”

“Stay down. Do you think you can slide out backwards?” He took a moment to assess his predicament then nodded an affirmative. “All right, feet first then,” she guided him out making sure they stayed low. She checked him over herself when he had fully emerged. He had small cuts from the windshield glass and he was clutching his chest where his vest had taken the bullet.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, feels like I got tackled by Juggernaut though,” he said with a wheezing cough.

Beckett poked her head up to try and see where the shooter was but had to quickly duck back down.

“Damn! I can’t see where he’s firing from.”

“Wanna try the old cell phone trick?” Castle offered, pulling his cell from his pocket, wincing as he did so.

“Yeah, just don’t get your hand shot off.”

Castle held his phone up and snapped off a quick picture of the brick building. Another shot rang through the air and impaled a trash can on the sidewalk near the building behind Castle and Beckett.

“You guys all right over there?!” one of the uniforms shouted out.

“Yeah!” Beckett called back. “Can you guys see where he’s shooting from?”

“Nah, wrong angle and we can’t get up on it,” the cop shouted back.

“Beckett,” Castle drew her attention to his phone. It showed Tony in one of the upstairs windows. He was on the wrong side for the uniforms to spot him and Beckett couldn’t get the shot without getting hit herself.

“Beckett,” she heard Ryan call her name. She peeked around the front of her car. He was over by Esposito, who had pulled Stefano against the side of the brick building around the corner. The corner position put them out of shooting range. Beckett gave Ryan a questioning look.

“Uniforms are with the girls,” he explained. Beckett nodded in approval.

“Castle, text that pic to Ryan’s cell.”

“You got an idea?” he asked while doing what she told him to.

“Might,” she gave a clipped answer as she reached into her car and grabbed a floor-mat. She waited for Ryan to get the picture. “Ryan, do you think you can make that?” He texted back his answer to say he could if he got a little further away from the buildings and into the street. She watched worriedly as he inched his way out, as far as the curb of the sidewalk, then he gave her a nod. “On the count of three,” she told him and he nodded, his eyes and gun never leaving the window.

“One, two, three!” she counted off then raised the floor-mat above her head. There were two shots, one went through the floor-mat, one went into the perp.

The uniforms rushed into the brick building to get Tony. An ambulance pulled up and loaded up Stefano in the back. Another would be sent for Tony. Castle refused treatment at first but Beckett made it clear she wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. They rode in the ambulance with Stefano.

“Mind if I ask him some questions?” Beckett asked the EMT after he had done a temporary patch job on Stefano’s shoulder and inserted an IV.

“Go ahead, this isn’t life threatening now that we’ve got the bleeding under control.”

“I know,” Beckett told him.

“Ah. Your work?”

“Yup.”

Stefano looked at Beckett bitterly. She asked if Esposito had fully Mirandized him, he had. Beckett asked her questions but Stefano’s lips were sealed, he gave up nothing.

The doctor’s checked over Castle. The impact of the bullet to his vest had bruised his ribs but thankfully they weren’t broken. He had some cuts from the glass but they were all minor. Castle took a minute after his treatment to text Alexis to let her know he was okay. She always worried if she heard there was a shooting and heaven forbid if she listened to the police blotter and heard his name or Beckett’s then she would really be in a tizzy. No, he’d learned a while back that telling her the truth was less painful after the event than making her worry by not communicating at all. She texted back asking him what happened to which he replied ‘just some excitement at work, tell you about it when I get home.’

Ryan and Esposito finished up their questioning of Tony Giordano and Castle and Beckett went with them to catch a lift back to the precinct. Beckett wasn’t too happy about her car having the windshield shot out.

“So did Tony have anything to say?” Beckett asked on the drive over.

“Plenty when it comes to rolling on his buddy Stefano,” Esposito said.

“Oh, by-the-by, it just so happens that Mr. Tony Giordano has an outstanding arrest warrant,” Ryan told them.

“The warrant was for auto-theft that he said was a misunderstanding-”

“It usually is,” Ryan cut in.

“-and that he had nothing to do with Tanya Larson’s murder. He said Stefano has a horrible temper and the girls are usually the target when he vents that anger. He admitted to texting Stefano that we were there but that he did not agree to Stefano hiding at his place, didn’t want Stefano to lead us to him. Said he had to physically shove him out the door.”

“That explains what I saw,” Castle said.

“You saw it happen?” Ryan asked.

“I didn’t see Stefano go in, he must have used a different door, but I saw this guy, Tony, push him out the front door. Stefano took a swing at him trying to force his way back inside. That’s when both of them noticed me in the car. Stefano drew his gun and I ducked behind the dash.”

“Then how did you get shot?” Esposito asked.

“Trying to use the damn radio to call for help,” Castle explained. “I think at first he only meant to scare me so I wouldn’t pursue him, that’s why none of his bullets actually hit the car, but when he saw me go for the radio…” Castle trailed off then tested his ribs by taking a deep breath in, hitched and winced then released the breath. “So why did Tony start firing if he was trying to hide?”

“Figured you’d made him, by that time Beckett had already taken down Stefano. His fight-or-flight response told him ‘fight’,” Ryan said.

“Wrong choice either way with this team, bro,” Esposito said, turning a corner. “Should’a never have messed with one of our own.”

Beckett watched Castle’s face as he realized Esposito meant him. He looked a little surprised at first, opened his mouth, looked at Esposito in the rear-view, closed his mouth, nodded once and looked out the window until they got back to the precinct. Beckett wasn’t sure why but she found the whole process amusing.

Once again the team found themselves filling out incident reports and arrests records. Stefano and Tony would be held at the hospital overnight then transferred to jail. All of Stefano’s girls had been rounded up for interviews but since they never caught them in the act of doing business they were technically free to go. They’d be offered a few places where they could stay.

“How you feelin’?” Beckett asked after the last of the work had been done.

“Sore but all right,” Castle responded.

“Care to catch the comfort food truck?”

“That’s sounds great, well take my car,” he told her, “but I think it’d be easier if you drove.” He handed her his keys.

They ate in the car in companionable silence for a while then when they did talk it was about inconsequential things, then they fell into an awkward silence. Neither of them willing or knowing how to be the first to broach the subject they both wanted and needed to talk about.

“I’ll drive you to your place then call a cab from there,” she told him.

“Are you sure? I mean I can drive from your place to mine, it’s just uncomfortable.”

“A cab for me is fine, might even walk.”

“It’ll be completely dark soon-”

“I’m armed, Castle.”

“Right.”

“Besides, I think a walk will help me clear my head.”

They pulled up to Castle’s place and got out of the car. Out of a new-found paranoia they both looked around for all the places someone with a camera could be hiding. They didn’t see anyone but that didn’t mean someone with a telephoto lens wasn’t there.

“Beckett- Kate, do you mind if I walk with you for a bit?” Castle asked her with that puppy dog look he had perfected.

“No, I don’t mind,” she said with a soft smile. They walked to the small community park that wasn’t too far away. After a few moments he risked reaching out his hand and taking a hold of hers. He half expected her to pull her hand away, but to his relief and joy she gave his hand a comforting squeeze. They held on to each other as they walked along the path in the park.

“You know you really had me worried today,” Kate told him.

“Yeah, I was a little worried there, too,” he said honestly then pointed to an empty park bench.

“I’m sorry about yesterday, I overreacted, I know it wasn’t your fault. About the article, I mean,” she said leaning forward on the bench, elbows on her knees.

“No, you had a right to be upset. It’s never easy to have your personal life invaded like that.”

“You’ve invaded my personal life everyday since we met,” she told him but her smile softened the words and made them more jest than serious.

“True, but I’m not some random stranger with a camera. I also know when to back off…most of the time anyway,” he added and it made her smile.

Castle’s cell phone gave a chirp telling him he had a text message. He read it aloud. It was Alexis wondering where he was and if everything was okay. He texted her back to tell her everything was fine, that he was just getting some air.

“Should probably get back soon so she can stop worrying,” he said as he pocketed his phone.

“Yeah,” Kate said but she hadn’t made a move to get up from the bench. Castle hadn’t moved yet either. “Rick?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, I enjoyed tonight too,” he said thinking about the comfort food and the companionable walk.

“No, not just for tonight,” she said and he looked at her quizzically. “Thank you for being there, for not giving up on me, even when I had my barriers up and pushed you away, you’re still here. Not many people know how to deal with me. So…thanks for being the one person who gets me.”

“Always,” he said with his serious face, the sultry one that seemed to grip her heart and other parts at the same time.

Their eyes danced together as they took each other in, down to look at full, kissable lips and back up again to a mirrored gaze of desire. She leaned toward him and he reached for her. One arm went around her middle, his hand pressed to the small of her back. His other hand cupped the back of her neck, his fingers weaving into her tresses, urging her closer. His eyes drifted closed as he leaned in to kiss her.

She brought her arms over his shoulders. One hand gripped his scapula while the other mirrored one of his hands playing with the hair at the base of his neck. The kiss was needy, it was full of want and comfort and full of life. It said all the things physical actions could say but words never could.

“Get a room,” a voice said and the kiss ended abruptly as they both looked to see who it was. A group of college girls were walking by.

“Leave them be,” one of them said and the group walked away giggling. Kate and Rick watched them go and looked back at each other and laughed. Castle winced a little holding his ribs but mirth still won out and he smiled at Kate and kissed her gently, a quick pressing of lips to make up for the abrupt end of their snogging session.

“C’mon, I’ll call you a cab when we get back to my place,” Castle said getting up from the bench and offering out his hand for her to hold.

“I can walk home alone okay, y’know.”

“I know, but after today…just humour me, please?”

“All right,” she conceded searching his face to make sure he really was okay. She took his hand and as they walked the conversation turned to the case.

“You know what I don’t get?” Castle said.

“Hmm?”

“Why kill Tanya? I mean, from Stefano’s stand-point what purpose did it serve?”

“Keeps the other girls in-line for one, you saw how frightened they were of him. He rules with fear. Two, he’s controlling and Tanya was a wildcard. She was leaving his bonds of control and that had to have gotten under his craw.”

“Yeah, but why not threaten her or make her submit some other way? How was killing her beneficial to him? She’s gone and that’s less money in his pocket, right?”

“Yeah,” Beckett said thoughtfully drawing out the syllable. “She was one of his chief money-makers according to the girls we picked up at Stefano’s. That part doesn’t sit right with me either.”

“So again, why did he do it? It just doesn’t fit.”

“Maybe he didn’t want her to go freelance and become competition,” Beckett suggested.

“But hadn’t she told him she was leaving the business?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she did.”

“So that brings me to the next question. Who, if anyone, benefited from her death?”

The question hung between them as they both pondered it. They walked by a streetwalker working the corner they were crossing at. The light bulbs over their heads blinked on and they looked at each other.

“The competition,” Beckett said.

“With Tanya out of the way that frees up all her clients,” Castle said.

“What about the partial fingerprint on the bullet, though?” Beckett wondered.

“False trail, frame Stefano, everyone automatically assumed it was him and never questioned it, it was like catching him with the smoking gun, or so we thought. But he’s still denying he had anything to do with it, right?”

“Right. So, assuming for the moment that he is being set up, who had access to his bullets?”

“Any of his girls,” Castle suggested.

“Mmm, I’m not so sure about that. Most all Stefano’s girls were extremely afraid of him. They feared for their lives under his control. If they were going to shoot anybody…”

“It would be Stefano,” Castle finished. They both fell silent again as they ran possibilities over in their brains.

“Maybe the girls will know someone who had access to the apartment, or maybe I’m wrong and one of them really was bold enough to do it themselves for some reason,” Beckett suggested. She pulled out her cell phone and dialled Esposito. She put it one speaker phone so Castle could hear too.

“Yo,” Esposito answered his phone after one ring.

“Hey, Esposito,” Beckett began.

“Let me guess, something is nagging you and Castle about the case?”

“Yeah, how’d you-”

“Me and Ryan too. We got as far as eating supper then we both ended up back at the Precinct. Figured you’d call and if you didn’t we’d call you.”

“Right.”

“Hold on, lemme put you on speaker phone,” Esposito said.

“Hiya, Beckett,” Ryan greeted. She could picture his boyish smile, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Hey. So what part was nagging you guys?”

“The bullet,” Ryan said. “Stefano was so careful about everything he did in his business to stay under the radar. So why did he suddenly slip when committing the biggest crime on his long list of offences?”

“Because he didn’t do it,” Castle answered.

“Oh, uh, hey, Castle,” Ryan said. Beckett was sure Ryan and Esposito were sharing a look with each other. Probably thinking all sorts of things because they weren’t stupid and they now knew she and Castle had had dinner and whatever imaginings they could come up with to fill the time space from when they left the Precinct until now. She gave Castle a glare, he raised his hands in a gesture that said ‘what?’

“So how’d you guys get to the same conclusion?” Esposito asked.

“More the why than the how,” Beckett said.

“It was bugging me that Stefano would take out his best girl rather than try to find a way to keep her,” Castle supplied.

“So we realized there is another party that would benefit from Tanya’s death that we need to consider,” Beckett told them.

“The other streetwalkers in the area,” Castle said.

“Less competition,” Esposito said breaking up Castle and Beckett’s back and forth stream.

“Exactly,” Beckett and Castle said together. Beckett waited for one of the guys to tease them for talking together but it never happened.

“You guys see if you can find some of Stefano’s girls. Talk to them again. See if any of them had something against Tanya or knew of anyone who did. Also if anyone else had access to the apartment and/or Stefano’s bullets that he had already handled.”

“Right,” she heard Ryan say.

“Should be easy enough, all the girls chose to spend the night at the same shelter,” Esposito informed.

“That’s assuming they haven’t decided to work tonight.” Castle had to add in his usual wise-ass manner, “I wonder what they charge?”

“Castle,” Beckett said to him warningly. She could hear Ryan and Esposito chuckling over the line. “Call me if you guys find out anything,” she told them.

“Yup,” Esposito said and the call ended.

“Let’s get back to your place. Give you a chance to reassure Alexis then we can drive out and meet the guys.”

 

When they got back to Castle’s loft Alexis was doing her schoolwork downstairs waiting for her father to get home. She ran to him about to give him one of her usual bear hugs when he put up his hand just in time. Alexis skidded to a halt just in front of him.

“Are you okay, Dad? What happened?” concern evident in her voice and on her face.

“I’m fine, just some bruised ribs is all, so gentle with me,” he smiled reassuringly. He opened his arms and she hugged him gently. He took the time to explain to her what happened, he never lied to his daughter, but he made it sound like it was cool to be caught in the middle of a gunfight. It was so like Castle to phrase it like that, Beckett thought.

“You’re going back out aren’t you?” Alexis asked, not sounding happy about it, noting Beckett’s habit of shifting her weight from foot to foot as she stood waiting. Beckett nodded. “Why? I thought you caught the killer?”

“There’s a chance it might be someone else,” Beckett explained kindly, understanding Alexis’ concern. “If there’s a chance it could’ve been someone else then we need to exhaust all other possibilities.”

“We get to go after a hooker!” Castle said crudely with excitement. Beckett and Alexis both rolled their eyes, caught each other doing it, then laughed.

“Do you two know how creepy that was?” Castle asked making both females laugh again. Beckett’s cell phone rang.

“Beckett,” she answered.

“Yo, get this,” Esposito said on the other line, “remember that older streetwalker we talked to?”

“The one that liked pinching your…cheek? Yeah?”

“Her name’s Wanda Queen. She used to be one of Stefano’s girls. Turns out Stefano kicked her out of his group, told her she was too old,” Esposito said ignoring Beckett’s jibe. “And guess who Stefano replaced her with?”

“Tanya,” Beckett answered.

“Yup.”

“All right, you two run her name, see if you come up with any priors, then go down to the street we found the body on. Scope the area, see if you can spot her but don’t tip her off and don’t get too close to the other girls. I want to bring her in for questioning but if she knows we’re coming for her she’ll go underground. If they sniff you out as cops they’ll all go into hiding for the night. Call me if you see her.”

“Right,” Esposito said then hung up. Beckett relayed all the new information to Castle.

“So what’s your plan?”

“Change your clothes,” she told him.

“My clothes?”

“Uh huh. Put on something that says ‘money’ but not something so expensive you’ll be upset if it gets torn in a catfight.” He gave her a questioning look that had a hint of mischief and, if Alexis hadn’t been there, Beckett was sure there would have been some wise-ass remark about her wanting him to take off his clothes. “You’re going to play the role of a John tonight,” Beckett answered his unspoken question. “You’ll drive the Ferrari and distract Queen so the guys and I can move in.”

“Won’t she recognize him?” Alexis asked.

“I don’t think she’ll recognize him from yesterday morning. He was wearing his shades and staying off to the sidelines. She was also rather distracted by Esposito. If she does make any kind of recognition it’ll be because of your books.”

“So John for you it is,” Alexis said to her father, knowing he was going to enjoy going undercover.

“Sounds like fun!” he said with a wide grin. “Just one question, though?”

“Hmm?”

“How are you getting in? ’Cause that outfit you’ve got on screams cop.”

“I’m open to crazy ideas,” Beckett told him after contemplating the issue herself, and hoped she wouldn’t regret throwing out the idea invite.

“It just so happens that I already have a crazy idea in mind,” Castle said with a wicked shine to his eyes and a sinful waggle of his eyebrows.  



	5. Chapter 5

Beckett should have known that Castle’s idea would be completely off the wall. The point by which she had become truly concerned was when he decided to raid Martha’s closet for a blonde wig and Alexis’ closet for a mini-skirt that Alexis would only be allowed out of the house in if she had leggings on underneath.

“Castle, what…?”

“If you can’t beat ’em, or in this case, sneak up on them, join ’em,” he said holding out the wig and the skirt.

“You want me to dress like a prostitute?” she gave him a glare that made him wither a bit.

“Got any better ideas?” he asked. She snatched the two items from him and walked to the bathroom. She did a quick change, taking of her pants in favour of the skirt. She left her button-down shirt un-tucked, pulled her belt from her pants and buckled it over her shirt. She was happy she had worn a pair of heels today and thankful she had shaved that morning. By the time she opened the door Alexis had fetched and returned with make-up. Beckett did a quick touch-up, putting on a little too much liner and shadow but not making it perfect. Too perfect and too clean was a red flag to the Johns that she was a cop, she’d learned that helping Vice once. She’d gone undercover as a hooker before for Vice when she was a beat cop, a fact that she wasn’t planning on telling Castle. That occasion was in a worse area than the street Queen worked. On that occasion she’d actually rubbed dirt and engine grease on her jeans and body. The ploy that day had worked. None of the prostitutes she’d ever met had ever looked like the ones in Pretty Woman.

Beckett gave herself one last glance in the mirror, mussed up the hair to the wig a bit then strutted out of the bathroom. The transformation took less than fifteen minutes. Castle stood slack-jawed in the kitchen watching her. She chucked her folded pants and blazer at him which he just barely caught in time before they smacked him in the face. He had changed his clothes as well and had his keys in his hand. By the time she got to the front door Castle was still rooted to the spot.

“You comin’ or what, Castle?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said finally moving toward the door, “yeah.”

“Have fun, guys!” Alexis said with a smile. They both waved and headed down the hallway.

“Y’know, you look good as a blonde,” Castle said staring at her.

“You’re staring, Castle.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said then looked away. A few seconds later she felt his eyes on her again but she didn’t say anything, just tried to hide her smile.

Esposito gave her cell a ring as they were nearing the right neighbourhood. They’d been told by one of the Stefano girls what street was Queen’s favourite. Beckett told them to hang back and that her and Castle had a plan and were going in and to stand by for her call.

Castle pulled over around the corner and a block away from the block Wanda Queen worked. Beckett popped a few more buttons of her blouse to show more cleavage, something she hadn’t wanted to do in front of Alexis or while Castle was driving lest he become so distracted he crashed, because that would be interesting to have to explain to the insurance company. Castle did that thing where he forgot to breathe then remembered and did a single gasp. Beckett smiled wickedly then went back to her business face.

“Wait here for a few before going on ahead, give me a chance to get close. If I’m not close enough when you get to her make small talk with her, haggle, stall,” she told him as she texted Ryan and Esposito to start moving in quietly. She got out of the car, grabbed her purse, and checked her clothes, what little there was, to make sure she looked right.

Aware that Castle was watching her she made sure her walk was a higher level of sexy, more sway to her hips as her heels clicked on the sidewalk. Before she turned the corner she paused and turned back to see him. He was watching her with a smouldering look. She thought about giving him the glare, since they were technically working, but decided to tease him more instead, she winked at him. His reaction was to bite his knuckles. She laughed as she turned the corner.

It wasn’t hard to blend in, the whole street was full of Johns, gawkers, pedestrians and women selling their ‘wares’. A car cruising the street slowly was blasting Pitbull’s I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) and made the walk seem to go faster and made it easy to keep up the sexy strut.

As soon as Beckett spotted Wanda Queen a few paces away she heard the purr of Castle’s Ferrari. He looked over all the girls while they preened then after a bit he gestured to Queen and she sashayed over to his car. Beckett started meandering her way up when one of the other girls blocked her path.

“You new ‘round here, honey?” the woman asked, her tone not at all kind. Great, because what Beckett needed right now was a turf dispute.

“Yeah, what of it?” Beckett said testily, looking over the woman. She didn’t recognize her.

“This here is Miss Queenie’s block. Any business you wanna do here you gotta check with her first.”

“Fine,” Beckett huffed playing along. “Where is this Miss Queenie?”

“Conducting business,” the woman pointed.

“Great,” Beckett said tonelessly then acted like she was going to wait patiently. The other girl seemed satisfied and went about her own business. Beckett saw her opportunity and she took it. She walked up behind Queen who was leaning in pretty far through the window of Castle’s car.

“So how ‘bout it, sugar? Fifty dollars to get you off?”

“I that your final offer?” Castle countered cheekily. Damn, Beckett thought, he got her to make the offer. She could bust her for solicitation instead of just bringing her in for questioning on suspicion of murder.

“Miss Queenie?”

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” she answered without turning around to look at Beckett.

“Yeah, about that,” Beckett said pulling her cuffs from her purse. Castle pointed at Beckett with a smile and Queen finally turned around.

“What the-”

“Wanda Queen, you’re under arrest for solicitation…” Beckett started reading her her rights as she cuffed her. Ryan and Esposito came out of whatever shadows they had been hiding in and kept watch on Beckett’s back and made sure no one got too close. Most of the business girls skedaddled pretty quick as did all of the Johns but there were still quite a few curious onlookers.

“Ryan, you wanna go get your car?” Beckett suggested as she stood there with Queen.

“Are you serious?” Wanda Queen asked irritably. “After I helped you on your case this is how you repay me? Is this about me grabbin’ you, sweet cheeks, ’cause I apologized for that,” she started to turn on her charms again.

“Just to be clear, are you waiving your rights?” Esposito asked.

“I ain’t done nothing, no money was exchanged. You have me on attempt of solicitation, slap on the wrist,” she blew it off like it was nothing.

“Truthfully, Wanda, we wanted to ask you questions regarding the case, you just made it harder for yourself,” Beckett said.

“Am I still under arrest?”

“Yes,” she told her, “yes, you are.”


	6. Chapter 6

Back at the precinct Castle’s Ferrari turned heads and so did Beckett. Some of the guys gave some cat-calls that were all in good fun. She’d ditched the wig and was about to change in the bathroom when Castle put a staying hand on her arm.

“Castle?”

“I was just thinking…if the reason Wanda got booted by Stefano was her age then seeing young and beautiful you dressed like that might be a trigger-point,” he said. She tried not to blush when he called her beautiful. What was worse was that he had a point but she really didn’t want to do an interrogation in a mini-skirt. She exhaled blowing upward as if blowing her bangs out of her eyes which she rolled.

“Fine, but if I catch you trying to look down my shirt or up my skirt while we’re in there you’re out.” She pushed past him and missed his triumphant smile.

“Guess what we found in Miss Queen’s purse?” Ryan said with a grin as he and Esposito fell into pace with Beckett on the way to interrogation.

“A gun?” Beckett ventured.

“How’d you know?” Ryan was crestfallen that his little bonus info wasn’t a surprise.

“Ballistics texted me to let me know the bullets Stefano shot out of his gun didn’t have the same striations as the one pulled from Tanya Larson’s body. And since it also didn’t match Tony’s and no other guns were found at Stefano’s…” Beckett explained her reasoning.

“Right,” Ryan said, “I knew that.”

“Did any of Stefano’s girls happen to mention seeing Miss Queen over at his place recently?” Castle asked. “She had to get the bullet at some point.”

“Hey, Esposito!” a uniform called out from over by the elevator.

“Yo!”

“Got someone here wants to speak with you.”

They all looked over to see one of Stefano’s girls, Mariette, with the uniformed cop. Esposito waved her over.

“We heard through the grapevine you arrested Queenie. Some of the other girls were worried if that meant Stefano didn’t do it and you were letting him go,” she said looking genuinely scared.

“He may not have murdered Tanya but he’s not leaving jail anytime soon,” Beckett reassured her and Mariette sighed in relief. A few tears escaped the woman’s eyes and Ryan gave her a tissue. “Mind if we ask you some more questions?”

“If it will help you in arresting Tanya’s killer go ahead. She was nice, she didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

“Do you remember seeing Miss Queen at Stefano’s anytime recently? Have any of you seen or talked to her recently?”

“No, none of us have spoken to her or associated with her since she got kicked out. Stefano wouldn’t let us.”

“Thank you,” Beckett said. Castle looked a little disappointed.

“Can I ask…when do you think we’ll be able to get our stuff out of Stefano’s place?”

“We’ll have a uniform unlock it for you tomorrow, CSU said they’d give the all clear in the morning,” Esposito told her.

“Oh, well we can all unlock it, we just figured it was a crime scene so…”

“You all have keys?” Beckett asked.

“Yeah, we all have our own key but Stefano would put a bar under the door-knob if we returned late without checking in.”

“He ever change the locks?” Ryan asked.

“Not that I know of,” Mariette answered.

“You have your key on you?” Beckett asked her.

“Yeah,” Mariette said with a curious tone.

“Ryan, can you grab Miss Queen’s purse and contents?”

“Sure,” he said then ran off to get it, minus the gun which had already been sent off to ballistics. When he returned Beckett started rummaging through the contents of the bag until she came up with Wanda Queen’s keys.

“Can we see your key to Stefano’s?”

“Sure,” Mariette said then held out her keys and showed Beckett which key was the right one. Beckett started comparing the keys until she found an exact match.

“That’s how she got in and grabbed the bullet with Stefano’s fingerprint on it without anyone seeing her,” Castle stated.

“She used her key while everyone was out working then left with the bullet leaving no one the wiser,” Beckett added.

“Why didn’t Stefano take his key back when he kicked her out?” Esposito asked.

“He did,” Mariette answered, “you see that paint on my key?” They all looked and nodded. “It’s not an accident, Stefano marks all our keys, colour coded. We get in trouble if he sees our colour key laying around. Her key doesn’t have a paint dot, it’s a copy.”

“If Stefano kept such a tight leash on his women, when did Queen have time to make a key copy when she was under him?” Ryan asked.

“She wouldn’t have,” Mariette said.

“Did any of the girls loan Wanda their key, maybe while they were on shift?” Castle asked.

“I can find out,” she offered. Beckett gestured with her eyes for Esposito to go with Mariette while she made her phone calls. Beckett reviewed Wanda Queen’s case file while they were waiting for them to return.

“Yo, Beckett!” Esposito called out as he walked back to Beckett’s desk with Mariette. “Mariette’s friend Sapphire said Miss Queen bullied her into letting her borrow her key last month.”

“Premeditation. She thought out the whole thing, how to do it and pin it on Stefano,” Castle deduced.

When Beckett and Castle stepped into interrogation Castle stood over by the two-way mirror trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, he stayed quiet, let Beckett have full control. It was a method they had chosen that would be the stick in Wanda Queen’s craw.

“Miss Queen-”

“Queenie.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Miss Queenie.”

“I have your name listed as Wanda Queen, have you had your name legally changed?”

“No.”

“Miss Queen, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. In addition to solicitation there are some more charges that I will have to file against you.”

“Like what? Ass pinching?” Queen sniggered.

“Try murder,” Beckett told her then repeated the Miranda rights and once again Queen waived them.

“And just who is it that I am supposed to have murdered?” she asked.

“Tanya Larson.”

“That was Stefano.”

“No, you wanted us to think it was Stefano. He was pretty easy to frame.”

“Why would you think I killed Tanya?”

“I’m asking the questions, Miss Queen-”

“Queenie,” she huffed.

“Wanda,” Beckett said and Queen winced at the name like tasting spoiled milk, “why didn’t you tell us you used to be one of Stefano’s girls?”

“You didn’t ask if I was,” she answered tartly.

“Why did you pretend that you didn’t know Tanya?”

“Technically I didn’t. She joined Stefano’s group after I left.”

“After Stefano kicked you out, you mean?” Castle piped up finally moving away from the mirror to sit next to Beckett.

“Whatever,” Queen said primping her hair then leaned forward in her chair provocatively to show cleavage. “Either way I didn’t really know Tanya.”

Beckett heard a knock on the door and she got up to answer it. If one of the guys felt the need to interrupt it had to be important. Apparently Castle thought the same thing because he was right on her heels like a loyal puppy. They stepped out into the hall to talk.

“Look what ballistics just faxed over,” Ryan said handing Beckett a report.

“The gun in Queen’s purse matches the gun that fired the kill-shot,” Esposito summed up.

“So we got her, that’s enough evidence for a solid conviction,” Ryan said.

“You still want a confession,” Castle said studying Beckett, it was a statement not a question. He knew her too well, could read her too well.

“Yup, and I know just how to get it,” Beckett said with a wicked gleam in her eye. “Castle, do you remember what I warned you about before we went in there?”

“Yeah…?”

“Forget what I said,” she told him but he looked at her doubtfully. As they walked back to interrogation she leaned in and whispered to him, “you only have eyes for me.” She strutted into the room and Castle followed her in with a crooked grin on his face.

“Where were we? Oh, yes, that’s right, Tanya,” Beckett said flippantly as she sat down. Castle sat down beside her again but his body was quarter-turned in his chair so his view was directly on Beckett. Queen was trying her best to vie for his attention but his eyes never left their sexy perusal of Beckett. “So it must have made you angry to be replaced by Tanya.”

“What do you mean ‘replaced’? She didn’t replace me.”

“Stefano kicked you out and brought her in.”

“She may have been taken in by him but she didn’t replace me,” Queen said, annoyed at the implication.

“That’s not what we heard. We heard she was popular among the clientele. That must have really pissed you off, to lose your regulars to such a young thing,” Beckett baited.

“I didn’t loose my regulars to her,” she denied vehemently.

“Oh, maybe not at first or all at once, no. I bet they trickled her way one by one. Left you struggling.”

“I ain’t struggling. I still got my corner. I still got the goods and I’ve got talents that still drive the guys wild,” Queen said, calmer again, trying to catch Castle’s attention again. “Sometimes I drive the women crazy too,” she said provocatively and Beckett thought Castle would break and look at the woman with that comment for sure but to her surprise and pleasure he didn’t. It pissed Wanda Queen off even more.

“You know what I see? I see a woman who’s getting too old for her profession. You hold on to what little control you can: who works on your block, what people call you, the competition. But your control was slipping, your regulars started to go to Tanya, fierce competition you couldn’t control. She was good too,” Beckett ruminated and Queen grew more angry by the second. “She was a wild card, she was unique and that made her an intrigue. Not only did she replace you at Stefano’s but she was better than you-”

“She wasn’t better than me! That little bitch just stood there and looked pretty. I bet she didn’t even know how to rub a dick right! But there she was, staying in my room! I’d worked for Stefano for years, built up a solid client list, put up with his rules, made him a crap-load of money and what does he do to repay that loyalty?! Kicks me out in favour of some twit who barely knew how to spread her legs!”

“Is that why you killed her and tried to pin it on Stefano?”

“Please,” Queen rolled her eyes.

“Without Tanya on the streets you might have a chance to pick up some of your old regulars. You have experience at least,” Castle said but he looked completely uninterested at her, like she was an old maid, the comment made to sound pitying.

“Without Tanya on the streets I’d be on top again-”

“Maybe physically, but figuratively…?” Castle taunted.

“The other girls don’t stand for much competition. Tanya got the guys on my client list because Stefano took my list and appointment book when he kicked me out. She was only my competition because she was served my client list on a silver frickin’ platter!”

“So you took out the competition,” Beckett said with ease and air of flippantness.

“Damn straight I did! And you know what? I’ve been fielding phone calls all day for appointments to see me, _me_!” Wanda Queen emphasized, looking at Castle. “I’ve still got it so you can stop pretending I don’t, Mister. I may not be no spring chickadee like your skinny little cop bitch, here, but I’m worth every penny and my clients know it! So I have my business back and I’m my own boss,” she finished, looking proud of herself, not realizing how big of a blunder she was making.

“That’s right, Stefano will never be your boss, or anyone else’s for that matter, ever again. That was a very clever set-up by the way,” Castle commented, leading the topic strategically.

“I only helped move along the inevitable, bastard had it coming to him,” Queen scoffed.

“Maybe he did at that,” Beckett said as she got up, no longer playing to coerce, “but Tanya Larson didn’t deserve what you did to her. You know what the real kicker is?” Beckett leaned over the table in her intimidating stance, her voice low and menacing, “Tanya was leaving Stefano and the business. You killed an innocent girl for nothing you hateful bitch!”

Beckett walked out of interrogation, Castle right behind her, leaving Wanda Queen to sit alone in stunned silence.


	7. Chapter 7

After sleeping in a little later than usual, having been up late with the arrest of Wanda Queen, Castle winced as he got out of bed, his body protesting the movement after what it had been through the previous day. He checked his cell phone for messages to make sure he hadn’t slept through any calls from Beckett. He hadn’t.

He grabbed his laptop and logged on as he drank a cup of coffee at the counter. He checked his email and saw a new one Paula. ‘Way to grab the free publicity’ it read and had a link which he clicked, dreading the results. He sighed as he saw it was yet another article for Page Six.

‘All In A Day’s Work’ the title read with an article summary: ‘arrests of a murderer, a pimp and a thief, a shootout and an undercover heist for the writer and homicide detectives team.’ There were pictures, of course, of himself and Beckett, Ryan and Esposito. Mug-shots of Stefano and Tony and Queen. A few after the shootout shots were there too. Castle was surprised because someone had informed the press quite well of the specifics of the case. He logged off his computer and decided to go into the precinct. The entire time getting ready and heading in to the precinct was spent worrying what Beckett’s reaction to the new article was going to be.

When he walked into the bullpen Beckett wasn’t in sight but Ryan and Esposito were.

“Hey, guys,” Castle greeted them, setting Beckett’s coffee down on her desk.

“Hey, Castle,” both detectives chorused.

“You guys seen Beckett?” he asked, worry etched on his face. Ryan and Esposito shared a look.

“Yeah, she’s here,” Ryan said.

“And she’s seen the article,” Esposito added.

“Is it bad?” Castle was getting more worried based on the two men’s solemn looks and grave tones.

“Should’a worn your flak jacket, bro,” Esposito told him.

“She’s that angry?”

“Who’s angry?” Beckett asked as she walked into the bullpen. She didn’t look angry but she did look confused. It was then that Castle realised the guys were pulling his leg.

“Very funny guys,” he told them with a mock guffaw.

“What’s goin’ on?” Beckett queried then drank from her coffee cup Castle brought her.

“We had Castle goin’ about the new article,” Ryan confessed.

“Hmm,” she harrumphed noncommittally.

“So you’ve read it?” Castle asked her, worried again.

“Yup.”

“Are you mad?” he asked. She shrugged. “I did notice that the reporters seemed pretty well informed about the case, how did that happen?”

“Police Commissioner,” Beckett answered. “Commissioner let me know that the press had asked about our case and since we closed it, with flair and three arrests, and it was good PR the Commissioner agreed to disclose certain details about the case.”

“Oh. Right. Good,” Castle said still watching Beckett to gauge her mood. She still seemed a bit cold, distant, maybe the guys weren’t yanking his chain as much as they thought they were. She went over to wipe the dry-erase marker from the murder board, all the other items, like pictures, had been packed up. He followed her and leaned/half-sat on the edge of her desk. “You’re not really mad, are you?”

She didn’t reply to him but her cell rang and she answered it. He listened to a one-sided phone conversation until she hung up. She walked over to her desk and grabbed her gear.

“Got another one, guys,” she said to Ryan and Esposito and they started to move too. They were almost out of the bullpen when Beckett stopped, turned around and looked back at Castle who hadn’t moved and was looking more like a rejected puppy than a bestselling crime novelist.

“You comin’, Castle?” she asked with a smile.

“Y- Yeah,” he hurried to join them. “So you’re not mad?”

“God, Castle, you are so gullible!” she said with a laugh.

He just smiled. As long as she wasn’t really mad at him she could tease him all she wanted, it meant things were back to normal, better even, because he could ask her out to dinner later.

“So…what do we got this time? Any chance the butler did it?”

“Castle,” Beckett sighed.

“What? One of these times it will be,” he said as they got in the elevator. He watched her, a smile forming on the lips he planned to kiss later, as the elevator doors closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: So that's the end of it. Hopefully you all enjoyed it. :) Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and a big, incredibly huge thank you to people kind enough to leave reviews!


End file.
